They were announced that the campaign would be short and that victory would come to the end of the effort. But in just six months, from July 19, 1870 to January 29, 1871, French soldiers were billed by the Prussian army after a humiliating confrontation. The awakening is brutal. The French are stunned, with the impression of having been deceived and dispossessed of a victory that was promised to them. The “incapable generals” are conspired, and two of them are even executed.
The town of Paris, a revolutionary ideal after the defeat of 1870
In a very original work, Jean-François Lecaillon questions the heritage of this cursed war but also that of the commune of Paris, which, arose in the chaos of defeat and built in opposition to “capitulards”, embodied a revolutionary ideal without tomorrow. Gloria defeated (“Glory to the vanquished”) is not a study of the facts relating to the conflict, but exposes the way in which the French perceived and told them.
An essay on memory and its political recovery
Richly nourished by testimonies and period documents, this essay on memory – and its recovery – recalls in particular how antigermanic resentment and “revanchism” have been widely instrumentalized for electoral purposes. The eyes will remain fixed on the Vosges blue line, and the resentments inherited from the humiliation of 1870 will facilitate the triggering of the Great War. Thus history, alas, stutters.
Glory Victis, the rematch of 1870, by Jean-Francois Lecaillon, ed. The Harmattan, 24 €.
➤ Article published in Geo History magazine n ° 102, “The French saga that made America”, from July-August 2025.
➤ Are you already faithful to Geo content? So not to miss anything, discover Our subscription formulas To receive Geo every month with you with ease.